Like magic, converting CO2 to carbon fibre materials we use in everyday life.

Interview with Mina Zarabian, CEO of Carbonova.

The technology that is being taken to the commercial stage by Calgary-based Carbonova Corp. sounds almost too good to be true, but companies in the concrete-production, auto parts, sports equipment and other sectors that are working with the firm to use the carbon dioxide-sourced material it produces have tested it, and they know it is true.

“We see this technology as ultimately being a large job creator,” said Carbonova CEO Mina Zarabian. “We see it as helping to create hundreds of jobs and ultimately, thousands of jobs as the whole value chain is developed.”

Zarabian, who is originally from Iran and moved to Alberta in 2013, where she earned a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Calgary (U of C), developed the Carbonova technology, along with co-inventor Dr. Pedro Pereira-Almao, a professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the U of C.

The breakthrough technology is based on carbon-conversion technology utilizing greenhouse gases, with natural gas being a key part of that conversion.

“We started to study the conversion of CO2 into value-added products in 2016,” she says. “The path we took for CO2 capture and utilization is totally different than what had been tried previously.”

The Carbonova approach is based on utilizing CO2 that has already been captured in Alberta and transforming it into a usable, lightweight and resilient ingredient in many products.

“This is a process that converts natural gas and CO2 into solid carbon nanofibres, that can then be used in a solid form for a lot of industries that can utilize the product,” says Zarabian.

Carbonova is partnering with NanosTech, a firm headed by Pereira-Almao which is working to commercialize several technologies developed at the U of C, based on catalytic nanoparticle technologies.

Zarabian says there’s no doubt in her mind about the money-making potential of the Carbonova approach. Carbonova’s product could be used to reinforce concrete, just as cement is now used, but it is much lighter, helping to reduce the GHGs created in the concrete-producing process. There are many other applications — the material could be used to replace metal parts in vehicles, greatly reducing the weight of those vehicles and helping to make them more fuel-efficient.

“It could play an important role in electric vehicles, to provide room for more batteries,” she says.

It could offer as much as a 30 per cent reduction in the weight of vehicles.

The largest competitor now for Carbonova’s lightweight material is carbon fibre, dominated by Japanese manufacturers. But it requires a huge amount of energy to produce carbon fibre, which leads to CO2 emissions. According to Toray (the largest producer of carbon fibers in the world), nearly 20 tons of CO2 are emitted to manufacture 1 ton of carbon fiber.

“With our process, we utilize CO2 to produce our products and will have much less carbon footprint. About one-third of the cost of carbon fibre is the energy needed to produce it, and with our energy efficient catalytic process we cut the energy demand and consequently the price.”

Carbonova is now focused on “scaling up” its technology, building a pre-commercial unit which will validate the technology for commercial use.

For more information, please visit https://www.carbonova.com/